Thompson: Warriors break opponents’ wills

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Golden State Warriors' Harrison Barnes (40), Andre Iguodala (9) and Draymond Green (23) wear "DREAM" shirts in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. in the fourth quarter of their game against the Denver Nuggets at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group)

Golden State Warriors' Marreese Speights (5) dunks the ball in the second quarter of their game against the Denver Nuggets at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015. Denver Nuggets' Darrell Arthur (00) is at right. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — The Warriors are the most exciting team in the league. Yet, they certainly know how to make a game boring.

They have mastered how to break a team’s will. They swarm and apply pressure until a white flag is waved in the form of a bench-clearing substitution.

That’s how it tends to go at Oracle Arena, especially, and the 122-79 demolition of the Denver Nuggets on Monday was the chief example. The 43-point win pushed their average margin of victory at home to 17.3 points per game.

“The difference between the way we are closing games now compared to early in the season is just dramatic,” coach Steve Kerr said.

The Warriors can put up points with the best of them. The Monday afternoon game was really a walk in the park.

The Warriors shot 54.3 percent, including 13 for 27 on 3-pointers, and the bench racked up 67 points. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson combined for 42 points, and neither played as much as 26 minutes.

But the Warriors’ real dominance is on defense. That’s where they question the heart of their opponents and usually find them wanting.

What was Curry most hyped about? Having a game-high two blocks.

“I’ll make sure everybody knows what happened,” Curry said about the next team meeting. “I was the rim protector.”

When the Warriors are at full strength — meaning Andrew Bogut is manning the middle — it’s not enough to be a good team to beat them. Opponents have to bring their “A” games and show a level of resolve they don’t have to muster most nights.

The Nuggets, bottom feeders in the Western Conference, didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t have the talent or the resilience to withstand the onslaught. They managed 28 points on 28 percent shooting in the first 24 minutes and were done by halftime.

“You get better and better every year with the same core and same communication,” Curry said, “just going through different experiences, understanding how important it is for us to play that kind of defense to get wins. The philosophy has been ingrained in us the last three years. You have to obviously have the talent to do it. … It’s a huge benefit to have been together for a little bit and get better every year.”

The cycle the Warriors have developed fuels itself. They have five starters — including three defensive specialists in Bogut, Thompson and Draymond Green — committed to aggressively attacking opponents. This speeds the game and fuels their offense.

And they can go all out on that end because they have another wave of players coming off the bench. Andre Iguodala, Justin Holiday, Shaun Livingston — enough length and athleticism to disrupt most offenses. Marreese Speights and David Lee, never known for their defense, have found how to be effective on that end.

Even the Warriors’ scorers realize that the better defense they play the more and better shots they get. Thompson’s open 3-pointers, Curry’s highlight-reel passes, Harrison Barnes’ chances in the open court, Lee’s chances to finish plays — they are aplenty when the Warriors get stops.

It’s a sustainable system for them, an unbearable reality for most opponents. To have to work so hard to score, knowing a barrage of fast breaks and 3-pointers is coming on the other end, is enough to break most teams.

Playing the Warriors, you’re always one run from being smoked. And only a few teams can handle it. No one has proved they can handle it at Oracle Arena. Not even San Antonio, which beat the Warriors early in the season before things started really clicking.

The Warriors (33-6) are three away from setting the franchise record for wins before the All-Star break.

They still have 12 games before the break. If they win nine, they’d have as many as the 72-win Chicago Bulls (1995-96). Six of those are at home, where they’ve won 16 straight. And five of the six road games are against teams at least 10 games under .500.

At this rate, it will be tough for the Warriors to play five close games over the next 12.

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